No ‘practical evidence’ Russia plans to use tactical nukes: CIA

CIA Director Bill Burns said that  there are no indications that Russia is ready to use tactical nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict.

“We don’t see, as an intelligence community, practical evidence at this point of Russian planning for the deployment or even potential use of tactical nuclear weapons,” Burns said.

“Given the kind of saber rattling that … we’ve heard from the Russian leadership, we can’t take lightly those possibilities,” Burns told a conference hosted by the Financial Times.

“So we stay very sharply focused as an intelligence service … on those impossibilities at a moment when the stakes are very high for Russia,” he said.

Russia placed nuclear forces on high alert shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine on February 24. Putin has also made thinly-veiled threats hinting at willingness to deploy Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons.

If the West intervenes directly in the Ukraine conflict, the Kremlin head has threatened “lightning fast” response.

According to observers, Russia’s official media has recently worked to make the use of nuclear weapons more acceptable to the population.